Status report from Fab5

[JT]

Originally posted at cc. Cut and past of a response to a member....

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If the provider crafted this latest MECM for the sole purpose of not using it and leaving the video generation process completely static for weeks or months on end, then I will say that you will find emulation solutions for almost everything, eventually.

If on the other hand they start to toggle the maps and interrupts everyday, you won't see a single emulation fix anywhere, ever.

This has always been a leisure activity for me and will always remain one. Fixes are forthcoming, in a timely manner, and on my schedule.

If the provider ups the ante with daily changes, you can all forget it. In this case, it ceases to be a leisure activity for me and I will gladly give up the source code and watch you guys do absolutely nothing with it.

As for the people in California still releasing fixes, with all their legal problems and the realistic prospect of going to jail, count yourselves lucky, very lucky that they still release anything.

Fab5
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I'm gonna save my comments for later. Maybe Fab5 will come through this weekend even if the fix is as temporary as he's rightfully saying it likely will be. Other posts that Fab5 has made at cc make it seem to me that he's got a pretty darn good idea of what he's up against with this. Haven't seen where he's said whether or not he's already got a temporary fix.

[Bow]

Not to dispute fab5's abilities, but at $89.oo a pop, sounds like a lucrative "leisure activity"
maybe I could purchase one on an installment plan...I promise payments to be "forthcoming, in a timely manner, and on my schedule."

[althor123]

wow, that so different than what he was saying back in december when he was promising great fixed for eternity. I guess he has made all the money from this product he can see. If this was such a leisure activity why is he selling them? leisure is for fun not for money. Milli, time for you to get over your own biasness and start promoting products that are best for your customers not for your pockets. If you continue to push any crap product that makes you money it will be hard for me to continue thinking your heart lies with your customers.

[ClarkeBelt]

Anyone that has been around awhile understands that emulation is always in danger of being shut down at times or being made so challenging to keep up that no one in their right mind would mess with it. Leisure activity? That strikes me as not credible. The dude has made plenty on this card. Things are getting tough and the buyers may be left holding the bag. Each of us has employed our own personal strategy. Some win, some lose. Some bought into the USB card thinking it would last until 102 emu went down for good. That day has not come, and yet we appear to be down for the count.

Fab5 should either produce a fix or release the damned code. Now.

[pecker88]

You guys must be relatively new to the hobby. This type of thing happens ALL THE TIME. It should only take one major screwing on a proprietary close source emu before you learn. If it happens twice, its no ones fault but your own.

I wish peeps would get real; the real problem is that $25 legacy atmegas have been supported better then a $90 *special* USB atmega. You do that math, how many people have invested in the latter option within the last few months...thats right, VERY FEW. This simply equates to Fab5 not making money, and when that happens...bye bye support.

This was predicted LONG ago by many...myself included.

[Double^D]

Hahahahaha. This is to funny.

[Doseman]

They're pulling posts like this (exposing Fab5 for being a bullshit artists) off of CC.com

Just a hobby? Bull fucking shit. He made his money, millions of dollars. Why not just release the code already?

I have a sub. I pretty much 'test' to get ppv. For most people, has this card paid for itself? probably.

This doesn't make Fab5 (a.k.a Scherbius, a.k.a Magic man, a.k.a Avrxman) any less of a liar.
A very rich liar.

- My 2¢

[rg6a]

I don't use this device and hence pay little attention to the goings on. How can anyone expect to pay $90 and get support in perpetuity, c'mon folks!

Then I read comments, of him taking the money and running. Have any of you pissers and moaners ever manufactured an electronic device??

Well I have, remember 'the wild thing' of the good old H days? Between lnitial layout, protos and then components and on it goes...we were out $15K and hadn't made a cent!!

Instead of wailing, perhaps if each and every usb owner would pay him $10 month...............something may happen. He also may have had enough, too time consuming and he has a day job and a family.........so his offer of source code is a good one.

Thing is anyone with the necessary skills, won't manage it for free.

Good Luck Kiddies

[SEARCHY4]

i dont know fab but i can remember way before the 256 was out seing him alot over at 10x. any connection?

[ClarkeBelt]

I don't use this device and hence pay little attention to the goings on. How can anyone expect to pay $90 and get support in perpetuity, c'mon folks!
There is a card swap underway for XVu and DN has announced plans for one in the near future. Once the cards are swapped, who knows where things will stand? The reason users are upset is that those days have not come. Other emulation platforms are up today. Buyers of the USB card have every right to expect the support to at least be the equal of the Atmega 128. At least!!! Perpetuity? NO. Until 102 emulation goes down for good? YES.

Instead of wailing, perhaps if each and every usb owner would pay him $10 month...............something may happen. He also may have had enough, too time consuming and he has a day job and a family.........so his offer of source code is a good one. $10 a month for an emu card that goes down at least once a week? HaHa. Get RomCode. Get DarkAngel. Get a 102. Piss more money away on a marginal platform? I think not. Release the source code and I have no further complaints. If no one steps up, hey, I am OK with that.

Thing is anyone with the necessary skills, won't manage it for free. There appear to plenty of good souls out there willing to do coding for free. See PGM, Phoenix team, etc.

[McLovin]

I will gladly give up the source code and watch you guys do absolutely nothing with it.

what the hell? taking a parting shot at the people who financed his leisure activity. not a class act at all.

[pecker88]

what the hell? taking a parting shot at the people who financed his leisure activity. not a class act at all.

release source code: yeah right!! Then he/avr-x man/magic man wouldn't be able to come out with another card with the same shitty code!!!

[Twostep]

He made his money, millions of dollars.

Not a chance, Doseman. The days of making millions of dollars from a particular testing device are long, long gone, unless Fab5 releases a Dave hack. :rolleyes: The 256 USB was never considered a premier testing platform and my guess is maybe 1000-2000 cards were sold, at the most, which certainly helped Fab5 pay the rent for the last year or so but it didn't make him rich. Having said that, it still doesn't excuse the idea of paid support and Fab5's smartass posts, like the one McLovin just put up.

I smell a Magic Card rerun, and I've got my Sick Sack ready.:(

[Bow]

I don't use this device and hence pay little attention to the goings on.
It shows.

[doca]

This si like any other testing mode. You pays your money and takes your chances. Anyone that thinks it will last forever is half a bubble off. Be glad it worked as long as it did. If you watch ppv and special events you more than got your money's wworth

[Wiley-X]

Goings-on in this "hobby" will never fail to amaze and amuse me. No matter if everything is up, a new spiffy card or gizmo will be released that promises the world and eagerly snapped up. Then, just as quickly, support will wane and the users will be complaining all over the place. It has happened DOZENS of times (and I imagine will happen a dozen more).

The core support for the legacy Atmega128 has always been around because of the simplicity of the device and the open source code. Coders like the Phoenix Team keep free support flowing and I'm sure that sales still continue to flow (although there are MANY sources for these cards).

Before investing in spiffy new gadgets, maybe users should take a look around at what has historically been a good investment.

[Highlander]

source code? what source code. I saw several sources of legacy. Older and somewhat recent. Didn't do anyone any good. No one wanted to try anything with it at all. Now I hear same thing about USB. What the heck will a source code for the USB do.
If anyone is serious at all about the source code, than why not pick up the source for wicked floating around, and go from there. Im sure that a coder capable of getting the USB atmega going will be able to do it with the source code already available.
And dont flame me with the bootloader. If there will be no curent support, than the bootloader will not metter, also if the source will get released, than the bootloader can be restored. Bottom line. If the curent coder does not want to support this product, than the money potential for it will die, and prices will drop. Than maybe we will see a new card. Once all of this happens than Im willing to bet that freeware coders will pick up the usb256 and get it going again, Who knows maybe phoenix will have an option for the usb. I did hear that the phoenix coders do like the USB Atmega concept, just hate dealers. And untill dealers are making unresonable $$ on the product, freeware coders will not pick up the support. BTW, phoenix code should work just fine with the USB atmega

[althor123]

I don't use this device and hence pay little attention to the goings on. How can anyone expect to pay $90 and get support in perpetuity

I can agree with that, im sure alot of people were expecting this from the start. Does that excuse Fab5? If you think so then do a search on Fab5 and read all the bullshit he said. This is still nagra2, other emulators are up without problems. There is no excuse for his actions at this point. This product was SLAMMED down our throats, even by people who we "trust" in this hobby. Remember the 3 month splash when you logged onto the site? USBATMEGA FOR SELL HERE! ALL UP ON DISH AND BEV! when in actuality it was down for about 1.5 months during that 3 months. Yet the splash never changed. Alot of promises were made by alot of different people and i for one will have a hard time trusting those who pushed it so hard in the future. Just take a loot at the top of the screen. Even now in latest developments USB256 card is being scrolled in the advertisement as if it were the premiere item.

[Mister Fix-it]

I will gladly give up the source code and watch you guys do absolutely nothing with it.

If he's no longer gonna be supporting it anyway, then why should he care what anybody may or may not do with the source code!

He couldn't have possibly thought it was going to go over well when he broke the news to everybody about some new "3rd party support group" which would supposedly be taking over the support of the USB ATmega cards, as if he knew absolutely nothing about it himself until right before he made that first post about it (after having made himself scarce after having made only one previous post in which he just said that if he did release a new fix it most likely wouldn't last very long) ...

so then after that he didn't say anything further (didn't make any additional posts) for almost a whole week, the whole time all the USB ATmega card owners were waiting and counting on him to come out with his next new fix so they could get their USB ATmega cards back up as they were all down then ...

and as everybody knows, most everything else was also down then! Well, everything was down! But then of course new fixes started coming out for everything again, one by one, as usual ... and when the new version of the Phoenix Loader was released for the regular ATmega cards, well THAT was when everybody (ALL the USB ATmega card owners at least) really started to wonder, especially with Fab5 not even making any posts at all since that last one in which all he said was something like "well, I could release a new fix but it would probably just get shut down pretty quick!" ...

I'm sure everybody has been thinking all this time now that if he HAD only went ahead and released a new fix, it would have been working ALL THIS TIME, just like EVERYTHING ELSE has, LOL!

Then when Fab5 finally made that post about him finding out about the new "3rd party support group" offering to take over the support of the USB ATmega cards, since he didn't really mention anything in his post about him knowing anything about this new "3rd party" support group planning on charging a "small fee" for their support, it wasn't really clear to anyone (and as far as I know, still isn't) if he actually even knew anything about that or not ...

but PKD, the Admin at Card-Coders, which is where Fab5 calls "home", said he knew nothing about any "small fee" they were planning on charging as they seemed to have left that part out when they approached him (through a PM I'm guessing) with the news of their offer to provide "3rd party" support for the USB ATmega cards ...

so what he had to say about that (then) was that since they hadn't mentioned that they were wanting to charge a "small fee" for their support rather than supply it for free like Fab5 had been doing when they first told him of their offer to supply this support, he would have to think about it a bit further and take their offer under consideration ...

and that's really about all I know about it (at this time) ...

but don't tell anybody I told you all that because I'm not the kind who goes around spreading "gossip"! LOL!

It would seem to me that the most important thing PKD would want to do and to do first would be to consult with Fab5 about it, to find out what all he knew or didn't know, etc.

and I'm thinking he most likely did just that!

So we should be hearing "something" further on this matter from either PKD or maybe even Fab5 himself soon!

I don't think they'll be announcing it on the 6 o' clock news though, so you might have to read all about it on one of these "testing" sites like Mili's place here! LOL!

I know, I know, that wasn't a bit funny, was it! 'Sorry!

but yes, I too see a problem with people posting in a thread like this, in this forum, who start out by saying something like ...

I don't use this device and hence pay little attention to the goings on.

So who really cares what you may or may not "think" about this whole thing then! LOL!